Setback not end of the world for Joseph
So where does it leave you?
Such is the competitiveness of Super Rugby’s New Zealand conference, that pretty much every related interview gets to that question eventually.
In the Crusaders, Chiefs, Highlanders and Hurricanes you’re looking at four teams who would be worthy champions this year. But such is the cut-throat nature of their conference, compared to others, that one of the quartet might not even qualify for the playoffs.
That means every time they win, lose or draw – or their rivals do – it all boils down to the same thing.
On Friday night that made it the turn of Highlanders coach Jamie Joseph to opine on what the 27-20 loss to the Hurricanes at Westpac Stadium now spelled for their season.
‘‘There’s a lot of footy. I don’t go into any game where you go ‘oh crikey we lost that game, we might as well go and pick up sticks and head off down the [Marlborough] Sounds’,’’ Joseph said.
‘‘A long way to go, three All Black games [against Wales] coming up, two or three injuries to key players in that series and then she’s back on again.
‘‘I’m not sure who’s going to make the playoffs, I don’t really care right now because we’re hurting from this loss.
‘‘We just have to get our team back on track and now we have to wait a month to actually turn that around.’’
They don’t get a lot of wind and rain inside Dunedin’s Forsyth Barr Stadium. There was plenty in Wellington on Friday, though, and Joseph was left to lament the Highlanders’ inability to cope with it.
But for a bad exit play or two, they might have emerged from Westpac Stadium with at least a draw.
When the June test window closes again the Highlanders will be away to the Southern Kings and Jaguares, before finishing the round-robin portion of proceedings by hosting the Chiefs.
For the Hurricanes it’s the Blues at home, followed by trips to the Waratahs and Crusaders. It’s just as well they beat the Highlanders because they might not win too often from here.
From one game to the next it’s been hard to predict what the Hurricanes might do. Perhaps that’s the reason why praise for them has been a little scant, despite them actually performing as well as the other New Zealand sides.
‘‘Last year we got talked up and we went to the final, but lost it. This year everyone’s talking other teams up and we’re just kind of sitting,’’ Hurricanes captain Dane Coles said. Not that it bothers him. ‘‘We’re probably not in a position to believe our own hype at the moment.’’
But they do go into this monthlong break with the belief that they’re improving.
Back in April, coach Chris Boyd said the Hurricanes were operating at about 30 per cent of their potential. The Highlanders win earned the players a much higher mark.
‘‘I think, given the conditions and given the importance of the game, to me that’s getting up around seven or eight [out of 10],’’ Boyd said.
That’s right now. As Joseph indicated, everyone’s circumstances could look quite different when the competition resumes on July 1.
Factor those potential changes in and we might all be back to asking that familiar question: so where does it leave you?